At Colorado Springs Utilities, one of our key enterprise strategic initiatives is to ensure employee, contractor and public safety with industry-leading tactics.
Our Public Safety Awareness Program targets high risk stakeholder audiences, one of which is first responders within our service territory. To create strong working partnerships with our own field personnel and area firefighters, dispatchers and paramedics, we facilitate liaison meetings.
These meetings enhance safety protocols around utilities infrastructure and expand mutual learning opportunities. Our Community Relations Division arranged these meetings during the last quarter of 2021, led by Community Relations Program Administrator Jane Zook and a team of subject matter experts (SMEs).
Based on natural gas regulations and compliance, first responders are a required audience for our utility to meet with annually. However, while these types of meetings are a regulatory requirement, we see our collaboration with our first responders as much more than that.
Topics covered included response protocols for blowing gas and hit lines, safety around equipment during traffic accidents and electric emergencies, evacuation and safe zones, carbon monoxide and natural gas leak calls, electric and gas meter shut-off procedures, and overviews of our systems.
The meetings allowed for crucial two-way conversations, with both sides sharing information and learning from one another.
“Meeting first responder personnel annually face to face facilitates strong working relationships, fosters trust and teamwork while increasing knowledge of one another’s work and scene tactics,” Zook said.
Here is what we accomplished in the last quarter of 2021 alone:
- 20+ Colorado Springs Utilities employees participated in the meet and greets.
- 30+ meetings with fire departments and dispatchers took place.
- 150+ first responders completed a natural gas regulatory and compliance benchmark survey to help us understand their knowledge of natural gas emergency response.
- There are 12 fire departments in our service territory. We visited each department and shared information with each shift at each department.
- We wrote and filmed two videos on rooftop solar and solar arrays with our SMEs and the Colorado Springs Fire Department, alerting them to the dangers they can encounter with these devices in the field.
Many thanks to the employees who participated in these collaborative meetings over the last several months, especially Jane Zook who organized and planned the meetings and Wildland Fire Chief Mike Myers who put us in contact with fire department training captains and chiefs.
